Something Worth Saving
by klutzysunshine
Summary: When a time traveling Peggy Carter and a few Avengers learn about Grant Ward, they decide to dig deeper. Without a personal attachment to him, they think there might be something worth saving in Grant.


**I don't own the MCU nor will I ever. No copyright infringement intended.**

* * *

In hindsight, Peggy touching the 0-8-4 was a mistake but she chose to think of it as destiny because of what happened next - ending up with the Avengers. And when they heard about Grant Ward courtesy of Phil Coulson and his team, Peggy couldn't squash the nagging feeling there was more to the story than they knew. "I feel like we need to talk to him."

"He's Hydra. What else do you need to know?" Phil asked the time-traveling director.

Peggy glared at him. "Phillip, I've known you since you were a young boy. You're making it personal and we can look at this situation from fresh eyes."

"What year are you from anyway?" questioned Skye.

Peggy's gaze softened. "I'm from 1998," she explained. She turned to Phil again. "We _will_ find this young man and see if there's something worth saving in him.

Skye snorted. "Good luck with that. There's nothing worth saving."

"I'm sure you believe that because you're angry but we're going to look at this situation objectively."

"He deserves that, no matter what he's done," chimed in Steve.

"There are some inconsistencies in his file I want to check into," Natasha murmured as she looked up from the pile of papers she was reading. "Did none of you check into his past or were you all too blinded by the betrayal?"

Phil sighed. "Fine, go ahead and find him. It's your fault if something happens and I'll tell you 'I told you so'. But he's evil, plain and simple."

"We'll see." Peggy waved at him and then went to go talk to Bucky, having an animated conversation with Bobbi and Jemma.

* * *

Tracking down Grant Ward was pretty easy, especially with Tony's resources, and they headed to his base of operations about three days later. Peggy was anxious to get back to return to her own time and the SHIELD scientists told her they were working on it (and according to Phil, they were the best so she trusted them) but she needed to get to the bottom of this situation first. "So how are we approaching this? He's not going to just let us in." Peggy looked at everybody and tapped her foot impatiently waiting for an answer.

"We're not going in guns blazing because that'll make him hostile," Steve finally answered.

"So we're going to knock," Bucky told her with a grin.

She rolled her eyes. "Why did I miss you two when I thought you were dead again?" she teased.

"Try being with them all the time," Natasha teased with her before raising her hand and knocking on the door.

"It's the fucking Avengers!" shouted a guard. "What do we do?"

"Let them in so we can see what they want, Bob." Grant had a smirk on his face when they all strolled through the door a few minutes later. "To what do I owe this pleasure?" He did a double take at seeing Peggy but recovered quickly enough that he hoped no one else noticed.

Peggy saw right through the facade immediately and wondered if the others did too. "We're here to talk to you, Grant. To see if there's something worth saving."

Grant snorted. "Well, you're too late. I'm a lost cause and there's no saving me. I'm the villain of this story and that's all there is to it. I'm not w…," he trailed off.

She chose not to call him out on what he was about to say because they could get into that later. "Natasha, why is this lair so dirty?"

Natasha shrugged. "No clue, Director Carter."

"Someone should clean it but I'm not doing it and neither are you." Peggy crinkled her nose up and began barking orders at Grant's recruits." Within three hours, the place was cleaned top to bottom.

"Why did you care how it looked here?" Grant asked her.

"Because she's decided you're her next project, Ward. Get used to it," Steve informed him as he went back to playing a videogame with Bucky and a telepathic Inhuman (let's just say luck wasn't on their side with this teenager and his powers).

"Where did Romanoff even disappear to?" Grant eyed them all suspiciously, wondering what the hell they were still doing here and if they were spying on him. But surely they could have gone about this in stealthier ways if that was the case?

"Research," Peggy answered cryptically and that's all she refused to tell him. She liked this Grant Ward despite his sarcasm (most of which was obviously a defense mechanism) and plans to take down SHIELD.

"Great."

"Will you please tell me why you are so angry at Phil Coulson? I must know what pissed you off so much." A curious Peggy refused to plead but she sounded like she was about to beg so she cringed after the words came out of her mouth.

Grant's expression turned sour as fury rose up from within him. "My older brother was a Senator and he used to abuse me and our younger siblings. Coulson tried to sell me out to him a few months ago."

Peggy, Steve, and Bucky all saw red. "So what did you do?" Bucky wondered.

"I escaped from SHIELD custody and then killed him and my parents," Grant answered honestly, daring them to react.

"Your parents abused you too?" Steve suspected, especially based on the little information they had from Grant's file, but he wanted to confirm.

He nodded. "Why are here and prying into my business anyway? Shouldn't you be off with Coulson's ragtag team?"

"We're here because we want to be." And Peggy left it at that.

* * *

Later that night in the motel room, they all gathered around the table to listen to any information Natasha had gathered. "I learned a lot more than I expected. Why Coulson and his team never bothered to check is beyond me."

"Don't keep us in the dark. Get to the point, please," Peggy ordered.

Natasha sighed. "The Wards covered up the abuse they reigned down on their children pretty well - doctors paid off, nannies and housekeepers fired randomly if they started digging too deep or tried to go to the authorities, the whole nine yards. Ward was sent to military school and thrived there until he got a phone call one day. He drove back to the family home to burn it down with Christian Ward - the senator - still inside."

"What possessed him to do that?" Peggy couldn't even imagine that desperation that drove an abused child to burn his house down with his abuser inside and her heart ached for Grant Ward despite everything he had done.

"Something caused him to snap," Bucky correctly surmised.

"Right on the money. Rose Ward, the younger sister, had recently been hospitalized for a 'fall down the stairs' and she said it was her own fault but someone - I believe Thomas, the other brother - suspected or knew for sure that wasn't the case."

"And what happened next changed the course of his life." Steve knew where this was going and he felt for the kid despite the fact that he was Hydra - leading the organization at that.

Natasha nodded. "Grant was then sent to Juvie but he wasn't there for very long. I checked into the facility and found security tapes. A man fitting John Garrett's description showed up and Grant disappeared with him. He was supposedly at the military school for the next five years but I double checked and no one remembers seeing him there. So there's a long period of time unaccounted for. Then he pops back up at the Academy, where John Garrett apparently meets him for the first time and decides to be his S.O."

"He was kidnapped. Wasn't he just a kid if he was in Juvie?" Steve's stomach churned at the thought of what could have happened in those missing five years.

Natasha sighed. "Yes. And here's where it gets interesting. I checked his medical records and it seems to be that almost any time a mission went south, Ward was hospitalized."

"So he was injured. Nothing unusual about that," Steve replied, confused as to what her point was.

Peggy gasped as she realized where Natasha's line of thinking had headed. She felt lightheaded and sick. "You believe this John Garrett was injuring Grant because something went wrong."

"Bingo." Natasha felt sick at her realization - the Red Room had basically done the same shit to the Black Widows.

"Thirty straight years of abuse. It's a wonder that poor boy is still standing. Doesn't excuse what he's done but there is something worth saving in Grant Douglas Ward," Peggy firmly declared. She refused to back down and would make sure Phil's team knew this information immediately.

"I agree. We need to help," Bucky told Steve, who sighed.

"I'm in. I can't disagree with any of you or I'll get my ass kicked." But he winked at both Peggy and Bucky, who rolled their eyes.

"So we'll go back tomorrow and try to get through to him."

"Sounds good to me," Natasha agreed.

The next day, they made their way back to Grant's base of operations. "You're back?" he asked incredulously. Why the hell had they returned?

"We're back and you're not getting rid of us this time. Sorry, kid," Bucky apologized before heading over to the Inhuman he had been playing with the day before to challenge him to a rematch.

Peggy decided to get straight to the point. "What happened to those missing five years after Garrett picked up you from Juvie?"

Grant's eyes widened and he stared at her in shock, his heart pounding at the question. "What?"

"You heard her. Answer," Natasha ordered. She firmly agreed with the rest of them that Grant needed a second chance after never getting one in his life. The team had let personal feelings cloud their judgment and it had been clearly been toxic to everyone involved. Plus, she liked him despite everything. She just hoped that he didn't make them regret this choice.

He glared at her. "He left me in the woods to 'teach me how to be a man'. He just built me up into who he wanted me to be."

They all stared at him in horror. "For all five years?" Peggy could only gape at him.

"Yes. Now why are you prying into my life like this?" he asked through gritted teeth. Grant felt cold fear wash all over him as he wondered again why they were doing this.

"Because we want to help you. We see something in you that others clearly didn't." A horrified Steve couldn't even begin to comb through what Grant went through during those five years in the woods."

"Did he beat you?" Natasha refused to beat around the bush and she wanted to see how he'd react.

Grant's eyes widened at the question. "What?"

"Answer her," Peggy ordered.

Grant really wanted to stop listening to Peggy but he answered Natasha anyway. What did he have to lose anyway? "Only when I fucked up. What does this have to do with anything? Clearly, I shouldn't have went with him but I deserved those lessons because I needed to learn how to be better. I know now Garrett was only using me but he only wanted to help."

Peggy choked back tears while Steve could only stare at him in horror. "Grant, what you're describing is abuse," she gently pointed out.

"It was not abuse! Yeah, it was bad but he wasn't abusing me," Grant denied immediately even as chills went up his spine. What if they were right? But they couldn't be. They weren't.

Natasha titled her head. "Ward, they're right. I know you don't want to believe it but it was abuse and brainwashing."

"Everything I did, I did of my own free will," he answered frantically as his heart started to pound.

"That's not necessarily true. You weren't brainwashed like I was but abuse is still brainwashing isn't it?" Bucky double checked with Steve and Natasha, who nodded.

"There is something worth saving in you and I see it. Deep down, you're still that scared little boy who set his house on fire because his little sister got hurt. It was Christian's fault, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Grant whispered as he hung his head. "I only wanted to protect Tommy and Rosie but I couldn't. And they hate me too so I'm not even sure why I bothered in the first place. Like I said before, I'm a lost cause. There's no saving me, Director Carter."

"I disagree. And you know how I know?"

"How?"

Peggy grinned. "Because of your names. Steven _Grant_ Rogers and _Grant_ Douglas Ward." It was flimsy but she was willing to try another to convince him. And she wished the Wards and John Garrett were still alive so she could take her anger out on them for the way they treated this clearly broken young man.

Both Steve and Grant side-eyed her but she ignored them. "Are you willing to let us help you? Because we can't if you won't let us," Steve told him.

"He's a pretty good friend to have on your side. I'd accept his offer," Bucky chimed in.

"You think I can be saved? That it's not too late for me?" To hope after everything that happened to him was foreign to Grant. He couldn't believe anyone could care this much.

Peggy smiled and she went to touch his shoulder but backed off when he flinched. "Anyone can be saved if you get to them early enough."

"Coulson said that once and I always wished it was true," Grant reluctantly admitted. And then he looked around at his base. "What am I going to do with all these people?"

"Don't worry, we'll get the Avengers on it. And I promise, nothing will happen to them," Natasha assured him.

"You want to come with us? We think you can be rehabilitated but it's up to you. And we need to make a quick pit stop first." Steve finally understood what he saw in Grant Ward now.

"You really think so?" Grant double checked.

"We do. And you and Bucky have similar stories. You were both brainwashed by Hydra but in different ways. It wasn't too late for me and it's not too late for you." Natasha was a little worried but she suspected this wouldn't come back to bite them in the ass.

"Yeah, she's right. It's unfair to us. We were both victimized by Hydra and I'm slowly getting back to who I used to be. It's just going to take some time. Asking for help got me started on the path back to myself," Bucky encouraged.

Grant closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, he blinked back tears. "I'm in," he agreed.

* * *

The quick pit stop turned out to be a detour to the Playground. While Steve kept Grant busy, Peggy and Natasha went straight to Phil with the information they discovered and from what little Grant decided to tell them. "And he's not lying? Because he's good at that," a skeptical Melinda told them once they were done.

"Melinda, I was your S.O when you first started SHIELD. You're really questioning my judgment now?"

She looked chastised and apologized. "You have to understand our position, Peggy."

"I do and that boy in there deserves another chance, one none of you gave him. I understand why and you are all entitled to your feelings but you took it too far from what I could pry out of him. Sending him back to his abuser? What the fuck were you thinking?" Peggy screamed. She was furious with Phil.

"I wasn't. It was a mistake," a chagrined Phil answered.

"Damn straight it was. And don't you laugh, Melinda May."

Melinda immediately stopped laughing. "Why?"

"Because you helped create the toxic environment. It's not all your faults, of course, but Grant didn't receive any of the psychological help needed after three suicide attempts. You were speaking with Melinda's ex-husband, correct?" Peggy questioned.

Phil nodded. "Yes."

"Then you should have contacted him. None of you, including Grant, are innocent in all of this. But it stops now. You get the best therapist SHIELD has to offer - if that's Andrew then so be it - and start him on the course to rehabilitation. What happened to getting to them early enough?" Peggy refused to back down.

"We were definitely in the wrong."

"Glad you admitted it. Now let's get out of here and have some fun," Natasha encouraged. She wanted to do something before this conversation took another dark turn.

"Phillip, you understand that all of you were hurt by Grant and you are entitled to your feelings but you went too far. That's all we have a problem with," Peggy explained before playfully smacking his shoulder as they headed out of the office.

Grant froze when Melinda walked up to him. "Don't waste this chance. You're not getting another."

He swallowed the lump in his throat, suddenly fearful. "I won't waste it," he vowed.

"Good. That's all I needed to know." And then Melinda joined Andrew and Skye on the couch.

"You really think he's worth saving?" Skye double checked. She didn't doubt them (it was fucking Peggy Carter, Steve Rogers, and Natasha Romanoff after all) but she needed to know for sure.

"Yes." Peggy's answer was clear and concise.

"Then that's good enough for me, I guess. Welcome back, Ward," Skye told him.

"Thanks?" Grant knew she still hated him (he didn't blame her) but he was grateful she was supporting his efforts anyway.

"You're welcome." But the awkwardness was palpable in the room so none of them - including Grant - stayed for very long.

* * *

Steve, Bucky, Natasha, Peggy, and Grant prepared to depart the Playground the next day, but Fitz and Jemma finally came up with a solution to send Peggy back to her own time. "You most likely won't remember this. I'm sorry," Jemma apologized. Meeting her mentor had been one of the most amazing moments of her life.

"It's okay, sweetheart. I did what I came here to do. The Avengers and your team are going to help with Grant's rehabilitation and that's what I was worried about." Peggy chuckled when Jemma dove into her arms for a hug.

"I'm going to miss you. It was so lovely to meet you."

"Likewise."

Within the hour, Peggy had been deposited back in her own timeline (her and Steve's goodbye drove everyone to tears) and the others were on their way back to Avengers Tower with Grant in tow.

Grant started lashing out sometimes because he didn't believe he deserved this second chance but having supportive people by his side - and a fantastic therapist - helped. It was a good start at least. And he was forever grateful that these people had seen something worth saving in him, especially on his bad days when he felt like giving up. And he even dropped in to visit Peggy with Steve sometimes. And eventually, Grant made his way back to the team he loved after making amends. And it was all because a few people refused to give up on him and saw potential.


End file.
